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Actress Pamela Anderson stunned guests at the launch of her charity foundation by detailing a catalogue of horrific sexual abuse during her childhood.

The shock revelation came as she unveiled The Pamela Anderson Foundation, which will focus on environmentalism and animal rights activism, in front of a crowd of more than 200 during the Cannes Film Festival in France on Friday.

She took to a podium to address revellers and spoke about how her deeply troubled past had prompted her love of nature.

The Baywatch star said, "I feel now might be the time to reveal a few of my most painful memories. At the risk of over-exposing myself, again, or being inappropriate, again, I thought I might share with you why I am doing this."

Anderson has previously revealed she was raped when she was 12 years old, but she shocked the crowd by detailing a string of abusive incidents, alleging she was molested by a female babysitter at the age of six and gang-raped as a teen by a group of young men.

Anderson said, "I did not have an easy childhood. Despite loving parents, I was molested from age six by a female babysitter... I went to a friend's boyfriend's house and his older brother decided to teach me backgammon which led into a back massage, which led into rape. My first heterosexual experience. He was 25 years old and I was 12."

She then added that a high school teenager "decided it would be funny to gang-rape me with six friends. I wanted off this earth."

British fashion designer Dame Vivienne Westwood was on hand to support her friend, but admitted the revelations even came as a shock to her.

She told Britain's The Guardian newspaper, "I did not know she had been through all of that. I have known her a long time now and we are really close."